Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts Vol 2
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!
When an array of rival princesses descends upon the palace, Sariphi gains an unlikely ally in the princess of the reptile clan. A hopeless romantic, Princess Amit is determined to push her erstwhile sacrifice friend into the king's arms! But even with Amit cheering her on, will Sariphi be able to carry out the absurd set of tasks Chancellor Anubis concocts to prove she is worthy of being queen...?
This volume we have all the Princesses present and vying for the King's attention. Princess Amit is literally the only likeable one. Seriously. Bless her, she soon becomes fast friends with Sariphi which was nice to see because Sariphi kind of doesn't have any friends. It's good that she has someone in her corner, to talk things through with. Because of Amit, Sariphi makes a few breakthroughs with her feelings this volume too.
Aside from Amit, we also meet a new member of the King's court, Jormungand who's the Captain of the Royal Guard. I ship he and Amit so much, I'm not going to lie. They're so cute together! As for Vivian..she's back and she's still up to her shady tricks. She's even nastier than before actually, but praise the Lord she finally gets hers!
Anubis....I'm so concerned about him. He is most definitely up to something to keep his position secure along with the Council, and of course he wants to secure the Kings position too. Anubis and the Council decide to make things difficult for Sariphi, they basically say they'll only accept her as the Queen Consort if she meets their conditions. Their conditions are impossible and more than a little bit unfair. I feel like Anubis is treading on some very thin ice with the King because the King knows the conditions are all Anubis' idea and he just keeps pushing it.
I get Anubis wanting to secure his position, but I'm really not liking him anymore. I kind of want to smack him one. I think he's up to more than just these conditions/trials and he allegedly does everything to protect the King...but does he really? He just gets shadier with each volume.
Luckily Sariphi has a Holy Beast to help her out...unfortunately Bennu is a foul mouthed, basically grumpy old man in baby Phoenix form. He's an entertaining addition but I'm not sure how much help he'll be or if he's just another cute sidekick.
The volume is well paced, and Sariphi is coming more in to her own. She's pretty determined to succeed and she starts to believe in herself and what she wants more in this volume, and gets the King to believe in her too. I feel like her character has made some progress in the right direction. The Trials are far from over though, and there's clearly a lot more in store.
